80s

"This is probably the stupidest thing you've ever done, Skye," the uninterested boy in the too short mom jeans said while rolling his eyes. "It isn't gonna work, I've watched enough movies to know that."

"It probably won't,but that doesn't mean she shouldn't try," Mr. Higgins, their science teacher huffed. "We're trying here, okay?"

"Sorry, Sir but this piece of trash's name is The Timvel," Jon said, adjusting his jeans. "Are you really expecting something big?"

"I'm trying to do something here, y'all. No need to shit on it, please?" Skye said, turning around and tying her unruly, curly hair into two buns. "I'm trying to meet Romans here, ok?"

She took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her dark skinned hand slowly came up to the pink button titled "DON'T TOUCH UNLESS YOU'RE SKYE OR MR.HIGGINS" and tentatively pressed it. The rusty machine rumbled and shook, its wheels lit up and started spinning in place, and the fairy lights in the back of The Timvel started to blink furiously, changing colors. And then, suddenly, the makeshift car shut down and all the lights in the school shut off.

"Told you it wouldn't work. Can I go home now, Sir? My detention's over."

The boy didn't get to the end of his sentence before all the lights came back on and a huge, beefy man with crazy, multicolored hair and beard decorated with pieces of old jewelry barreled into the room, screaming and smacked Skye right in the face.

In a millisecond, Skye, The Timvel, and the crazy, hairy man were gone.
*****
Instead of going to 300BC, meeting cute Romans and drinking nectar from the gods and, following her return back into 2017, winning the school's science fair, a Nobel's prize, and becoming the world's next Oprah, Skye Davidson ends up back in the good old days: the 80s.